I love shoes. You love shoes. It seems like a harmless thing, until someone tells you “I think you have too many shoes” and you’re like “Shut up!” and then this happens. But seriously, if your shoe habit is wreaking havoc on your bank account or there’s no room left in your closet or your friends are begging you to talk about something other than the shoe sale you’re going to this weekend, it may be time to take it down a notch. Here are a few suggestions for kicking that pesky shoe addiction:

1. Do the math.

Whenever I think about developing a hardcore shoe addiction, I remember the episode of Sex and the City where Carrie does the math and realizes she has $40,000 worth of shoes in her closet, which explains why she doesn’t have any money for a down payment on an apartment. Of course, the majority of us don’t own 100 pairs of Manolos, but even if you’re just spending $30 a month on something cute from Target, that’s $360 over a year. Maybe you’re okay with that, or maybe you would have rather spent that money on a plane ticket to visit a friend, or a couple of really nice dinners, or whatever one of your non-shoe vices is.

2. Realize shoes deserve better than your shoe pile.

Disorganized people, you know what I’m talking about. It’s that pile of shoes sitting by your front door that you mean to put back on your shoe rack (or buy a shoe rack for) and you don’t. The shoes in the pile feel sad, you feel sad looking at them. Realize maybe there isn’t any room for more shoes in your life right now, and let those shoes at the store go to a home where someone has the energy and space to treasure them.

3. Consider your closet space.

Maybe you’re one of those hyper-organized people who actually keeps the boxes for your shoes, or has shoe storage boxes with pictures of your shoes on the outside (do people really do this?). Regardless, if you were taking up less of that space with your fancy shoe boxes, you’d have more room for dresses or sweaters or skeletons or whatever it is you like to keep in your closet.

4. Find a new addiction.

The best way to break a habit is to replace it with another one, right? Maybe try stamp collecting. They’re only like 49 cents each and they take up basically no space!

5. Take a stand.

I’m not even going to pretend like I don’t love shoes, but I am sort of over all the lazy “LOL women shoes” jokes that are everywhere. Be the one to break this stereotype. Next time someone makes a shoe joke, you can be all “Excuse me, I’m a woman, but I’m not really that into shoes.”

6. Ask your friends to have an intervention.

Invite everyone over and make them talk about how your shoe addiction is affecting them. They may have to make stuff up, or maybe they won’t, in which case, maybe you should lay off the shoes for a while.

7. Get a dog.

You know what dogs love to chew on? Shoes. You won’t want to bring fancy new shoes home if they’re just going to be destroyed by your adorable puppy. And only a monster would get rid of the dog just so they could get more shoes.

It would be crazy to never buy shoes again; shoes get old and fall apart or go out of style. If you force yourself to get rid of one old pair of shoes for every new one you buy, you might think twice before getting new ones, and you’ll avoid having to make “has a separate shoe closet” a criteria next time you go apartment hunting.

10. Just give into it.

If you’re not having a problem paying your credit card bills, you’re still saving money for a house/retirement/whatever and your shoe closet doesn’t resemble an episode of Hoarders, carry on. It’s not a problem, it’s a hobby!

Andrea Greb has spent nearly a decade trying to figure out if she’s a Carrie or a Miranda. She daylights as a rocket scientist and pursues her secret passion of writing in her spare time. She enjoys running, baking and hanging out with Blair (her cat, not the Gossip Girl character, though she thinks she would enjoy the latter were she not fictional).

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